


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Sweet Ass Ride

by Imitation_Crabmeats



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Car Accidents, Driving, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Drugs, Gen, One Shot, Recreational Drug Use, References to Drugs, Swearing, Underage Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24939190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imitation_Crabmeats/pseuds/Imitation_Crabmeats
Summary: On the day of the House Cup annual street race, a drug-addled Harry Potter wrecks and plunges into the Black Lake and, as he sinks to a watery grave, must reflect on the wild, needlessly dangerous ride that brought him here. (features absurd amounts of drug use)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Sweet Ass Ride

It was a cold, cloudy day in the forest outside of Hogwarts. The normally dense silence was broken by the sound of engines and the sharp smash of a vehicle flinging itself into the air, hanging there for a long moment before crashing into the surface of the Black Lake. The water swallowed up the car immediately, taking with it the driver, Harry Potter.  
By the time he regained control, it was too late for Harry to escape. The water pressure was holding the door shut, trapping him as he sunk into the dark depths of the lake. This vehicle that had been his birthright was now a coffin for his burial in this watery grave. But it was not just water in this grave. This new metal intruder woke up a legion of nightmare monstrosities that called this lake home.  
Eventually Harry stopped struggling, throwing himself against the door, kicking the window, and instead resigned himself to his fate.  
It had been a long journey, such a shame that it had to end this way, drowning in a murky lake. Although he might not actually drown if the hellish creatures circling his vehicle decided to bite the car in half.  
Then again, danger like this was nothing new for the boy wizard. He always figured he’d die horribly. That was the risk that came with living a life like his.  
Still sucked though.  
A leviathan with glowing eyes bumped against the side of the car, shaking it. A spurt of swampy water seeped in through the windows. Wouldn’t be much longer now. This was as good a time as any to have a little dip into something that would take his mind off the situation.  
Harry checked the glove box but his stash had already been used up long ago. Damn.   
His hands started itching thinking about how he was going to meet his untimely fate without anything to take the edge off.  
Wasn’t much else to do but think about how he’d gotten here, about the winding, magical journey that had led him on this path.  
It was a bit hard to remember most of it though, seeing as in recent years he’d suffered a large number of blackouts. Mostly due to the drug use.  
As a school of flesh-biting cod attached themselves to the windshield in front of him, teeth scraping the glass, Harry began thinking back on his life and how he’d ended up here.

Many years ago, on a dark, quiet night, Harry was delivered to his new home.  
The silence of Privet Drive was broken by the loud rumbling of a junky motorcycle, ridden by a giant. As the wheels hit the pavement, Hagrid momentarily lost control and veered off the road, skidding through several flowerbeds.  
Hagrid, thick with the stench of manure and spoiled ham, was only there because he’d drawn the short straw and had inherited the bothersome task of delivering this now-famous wizard kid to his new home.  
As he approached what he assumed was probably the right address, he dug the bundled baby out of his sidecar. There wasn’t time enough for him to make a production of this.  
“Later, shitsqueak. My pizza’s getting cold.” Hagrid pitched the baby off the bike, who miraculously landed safely on a pile of gravel.  
He revved his motor as he took off, flattening three mailboxes in his path.  
And so, Harry began his new humble life, in preparation for his eventual induction into the wizarding world, unaware at the time of the great destiny awaiting him.

At first, upon being forced to adopt Harry, the Dursley’s were less than happy to have another mouth to feed, and felt some manner of resentment toward this scarred baby. But after a time they begrudgingly accepted him as one of their own. It was tough work raising four children, but they managed and over the years grew to appreciate having Harry around.  
That is, until the first time one of their children was killed by a snake.

Henrietta Dursley met her fate during a family trip to the zoo, specifically at the hands of the largest member of the snake exhibit, Mr. Squeezy Bites. Authorities and zoo staff were later confounded on how such an accident could have taken place. She had somehow made it past every cage, plate of glass, and safety lock, landing in the grasp of a massive boa constrictor.   
This, of course, had been Harry’s doing, the first expression of his latent magical abilities. He’d had a chat with the massive snake, who’d made a very convincing case for why Harry should forsake his adopted sister. After all, the snake was quite hungry. Harry agreed, being that he was still a small child and exceedingly stupid.

After this horrific event, Petunia was the only one to hold any suspicion that Harry had been responsible. It didn’t seem possible, and eventually she attributed these feelings to paranoia born out of some side effect of her grief.  
Then their eldest son Webley Dursley met with a similar fate, bitten by a deadly viper. A viper that Harry helped escape from a traveling circus.  
This time, Petunia saw Harry beforehand, whispering to the snake in its cage.  
Even so, as they slowly paid off their mounting funeral bills, she aggressively suppressed her suspicions. It was unthinkable that this precious child could be a murderous snake fiend.   
So they went about their lives, careful to avoid the zoo or any snake adjacent activities.

But once again, it was a school trip that brought one of the Dursley’s face to face with another snake.  
Luckily for Dudley, this time he was dumped into a pit of non-poisonous snakes whose only wish was to escape.  
When his parents found out, the Dursley’s were overcome with emotion, clinging to their one surviving child. Non-lethal snake or not, they doted on Dudley, showering him with attention, for he was the boy who lived. And as for Harry, there was no longer any doubt in their minds that Harry was a menace. Extremely dangerous.  
To protect their last living child, they quarantined Harry in the room under the stairs, where he spent most of his day kicking the walls and spitting.  
Harry was oblivious to his crimes, and spent long hours cursing his dumb legal guardians who locked him up in this dumb room for no reason.

But everything changed as Harry approached his birthday. A mere week before he was to turn eleven, the birds began arriving.  
For a solid seven days, owls dive bombed Number 4, Privet Drive without warning or explanation. They smashed into the windows and bounced off into the lawn, dazed or dead. They were very stupid birds.  
The Dursleys tried to ignore it but every few minutes, it seemed, there would be another hard thunk against the glass, interrupting whatever conversation they’d been trying to have or their daily grieving session.

This continued until finally the Dursley’s received a massive visitor around dinner time, pushing his way through the mountain of birds that had accumulated around their house. After stomping through, he kicked in their door in a spray of splintered wood and discarded feathers.  
The Dursley’s were speechless at this frightening mass of meat and beard.  
“Which one of you is Harry? Is it the fat one?”  
The Dursley’s dove on their son to protect him. The gigantic man didn’t look like a snake but they weren’t taking any chances.  
Hagrid noticed Harry in the corner, huddled like a little goblin, then noticed the scar. “Oh, I guess it’s you. Let’s go. You’re a wizard or whatever.”  
“What? But I’m-”  
Hagrid grabbed him by the head and dragged him away from the terrified Dursley’s. “Thanks for hanging onto this little bugger. I’m taking him back.”  
Then he smashed another hole in their living room wall on his way out.

******************************************************************

As they sped away on Hagrid’s bike, Harry was enthralled by this strange turn of events and not concerned as he should have been by this apparent kidnapping.  
Hagrid had no intentions of explaining anything to this idiot child. He only wanted to get him on the train to school and let his part in this finally be done.  
However, Harry pelted him with a constant stream of obnoxious questions.  
“I told you you were a wizard. What more do you want, you annoying little rat?”

It wasn’t until Harry and Hagrid reached Diagon Alley that Harry began to realize the weight of the situation. He was being ushered into a world of magic and wonder, a world where he belonged. A world full of whimsically filthy peasants.  
Harry gasped in wonder at literally every single weirdo in period dress that they passed.

Hagrid led him to Gringotts 24 hour storage, to the carpark that held his inheritance.  
The garage was lined with piles of coins, mold-riddled old newspapers, and miscellaneous piles of magical trash tied up in sacks. But the centerpiece was a sleek looking orange muscle car, covered in a layer of dust.  
“Wow. What is this?”  
“Your inheritance.” Hagrid sniffed and wiped his nose. “More to being a wizard than wussy little magic spells and funny hats. It’s about taming a combustion engine that roars like a dragon and putting your wheels to the open road. Killing pedestrians occasionally.” He ran his hand along the hood, picking up a layer of dust. “This car was your father’s. And now it’s yours. Kind of wasted on you, though.”  
“It’s amazing.” Harry was already imagining the yards he could destroy, doing donuts.  
“You drove it once, and you’ll drive it again. Once you get your permit, anyway.”  
“I drove this?”  
“Aye. Twas the night the dark lord brutally murdered your parents. Brutally. You, as a mere babe, crawled into the driver seat and somehow undid the emergency brake. Rolled right down that driveway and smashed into that snake fuck, killing him.”  
“Amazing.” Harry admired the vehicle, beaming at its raw power. "This is cool as shit."  
"Don't swear, you fuck" He socked him in the face with his huge, meaty fist and Harry’s head bounced off the front bumper of the car. Blood was already shooting out his nose.  
Dazed, he stumbled back to his feet, but noticed something on the front bumper, near the fresh smear of his nose blood. “Hey, there’s a dent here.”  
“Aye. That’s where the dark lord got his face smashed in. By you. Made his face all mushed up and gross. Messed up his nose.”  
Harry was incapable of grasping the weighty irony of seeing the spot where Voldemort had gotten his nose ruined while Harry was crouched here with his own, less messed up nose. “Is somebody going to fix this?”  
“Shut up, you shit.” Hagrid hefted an armful of coins to pay for Harry’s supplies, pocketing some of it for himself. “Come on, let’s go before you accidentally kill another dark lord.”

Begrudgingly, Hagrid accompanied Harry so he could do his school shopping. It was clearly a task Hagrid detested, but he’d likely lost a bet at some point to be entrusted with babysitting this cursed child.  
Their first, and most important stop, was Olivander’s. Olivander had an iron-grip monopoly on his category of back to school supplies. Every would-be competitor had long since taken up residence in the nearest body of water tied down with magical cinder blocks.  
Hagrid seemed especially sour as he opened the door for Harry and shoved him in. “Let’s get this over with. And don’t make eye contact with this weirdo.”  
Olivander’s Key Shop was absolutely reeking with old man smell and burnt plastic.  
Being quite hard of hearing in his old age, it took Olivander a few moments to realize he had customers. He quickly stowed away the illegal pornography he’d been browsing and put on his salesman smile. “Ah, a young wizard driver-to-be. Welcome.”  
Harry was wonderstruck as he was stupidly unacquainted with this new, whimsical world. All around him from tiny hooks hung hundreds of key rings, keys, and decorative keychains of every shape and color.  
Hagrid shoved him toward the counter. “Hurry up and give him his garbage. I’ve got appointments to get to.”  
“A new wizard, how exhilarating.” Olivander launched into his well practiced spiel, demonstrating his wares for Harry, magically infused keys and their accompanying keychains.  
“This is how you make your magic. Your ‘wand’, if you will.”  
“Wow!”  
“Stop being so goddamn full of wonder,” Hagrid huffed. He turned to Olivander. “And you, quit dicking around and give him the expensive one.”  
Olivander gave him a sour look and reached under the counter. After barely a moment of searching he brought out a red satin box and dropped it on the counter. The price tag on it was much larger than any of the others displayed. “Oh look, this one is calling to you. It must be destiny.”  
He demonstrated it for Harry, the keyring giving a magical jingle as it was removed from the box. Phoenix feather ornament, nickel ring, and a saw toothed saddle key.  
“It’s one of my finest sets of keys and perfectly suited to a boy such as yourself with such a magnificent burden of fate. It will serve you well.”  
Behind him, Hagrid was rolling his eyes and making a dismissive jerk off motion.

The rest of Harry’s shopping trip was spent being dragged around by Hagrid, who would only stop to scoop up supplies in his giant, meaty arms.  
“You like owls? Vicious creatures. Tear your eyes out.”  
“Actually I’d rather-”  
“Shut up,” Hagrid said, grabbing the first owl he saw.  
Once they’d acquired a mountain of wizard garbage, Hagrid dumped Harry off at the train station.  
“Now get to school, you git. I’ve got ‘business’ to attend to.” He revved his bike, spitting out a black cloud of smog into the air which made Harry cough. “I’ve got a colon full of dragon eggs I’ve got to get across the border. Don’t tell anyone you saw me!”

*********************************************************************

As part of the beginning of the school year ritual, most of the students returning to Hogwarts would form up into a gigantic convoy, each one driving their vehicle of choice. So many engines roaring through the countryside that the sky would turn black from the resulting exhaust.  
The first years, on the other hand, hadn’t even earned a permit yet so they were forced to suffer the indignity of riding a train the entire way.  
However, Harry was too enamored by fancy to know he should be ashamed.  
“Wow, what a whimsical adventure I’ve found myself on.” Harry set the bird cage in the seat across from him. “And I’ve already got my first friend,” he said, making dreamy eyes at the owl.  
The owl, however, didn’t give a flying fuck. It was too busy smoking and doing sweet skateboard tricks inside its cage, which was particularly impressive considering how small a space it was.  
As the train began rumbling down the tracks, Harry stupidly opened the cage to pet his new owl.  
As soon as he saw his opportunity, the owl escaped in a flutter of wings, leaving Harry with a cigarette burn in the process. Harry shrieked and his owl was gone out the window a moment later, leaving only a handful of feathers.

Before the feathers had settled, the compartment door slid open, revealing a dopey redhead busy stuffing snacks into his mouth.  
“Is this one taken?” he mumbled through a cheekful of drippy licorice.  
“Oh boy, a second friend already.” Harry threw the birdcage out the window excitedly.  
“Uh, okay then.” He took a seat, then did a double take when he saw Harry’s scar. “Wait a second, are you Harry Potter?”  
“I am!”  
“Wow, I’ve never met a celebrity before.” As starstruck as he was, Ron was still absentmindedly taking smuggled snacks from his bag and stuffing them in his mouth.  
This was a bit much for Harry to handle. A real life person was excited to see him? He was finally superior to someone and this knowledge filled him with a frightening need for more validation. At that moment, Harry decided that this dumb, poor, ridiculous child would be his best friend forever.

Ron checked outside to make sure no one was listening in and then leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “You ever licked chocolate toads before?”  
“Chocolate toads? What a delightful sounding treat!”  
“No, not like normal ones.” Ron opened his bag of candy and snacks and the faint smell and the questionable state of the packaging made it clear that this food had all been pilfered from a wizard dumpster.  
Ron found a pair of packaged chocolate frogs and tore off the bright red warning labels with “Defective” written across them.   
“They took these off the market.” He handed one to Harry. It thumped weakly inside the packaging. “Word is, if you lick these a certain way, it gets you high.”  
If there was one thing Harry was good at, it was going along with whatever anyone told him to do. Everything was an adventure, and what an adventure getting high would be.  
Soon enough they were desperately slurping at the frogs, which mostly tasted like old expired chocolate that occasionally gave them brief dizzy spells.  
They were still slurping when the frizzy haired girl barged in.  
“Excuse me, I was looking for-” She looked at them trying to be casual. “Are you licking frogs?”  
Harry gulped nervously, lights swimming in his eyes, the now slimy frog stowed away in his pocket. “No.”  
The legs of a chocolate frog were poking out of Ron’s mouth. He grunted angrily.  
The new girl rolled her eyes. “You’re not even doing it right. You have to squeeze the sides so it excretes the proper-”  
Ron spit out the frog. “How would you know? Are you a narc?”  
“No. I read about it in a book.”  
“A book? She’s a narc, Harry. We’ve gotta get out of here.” He eyed the window, planning an escape that absolutely would have killed them.  
“Harry?” She turned her attention back to The-Boy-Who-Drived, noticing his scar. “Are you Harry Potter?”  
“Maybe.”  
“I’ve read about you in my books.”  
Harry was hit by a fresh wave of validating joy. All these people were interested in meeting him, and one of them was a girl. Before now, the only ones who’d paid him any attention were hungry snakes.  
“Don’t talk to her, Harry. She’s a narc.”  
“I’m not a narc,” she exclaimed, stamping her foot. “Gimme that frog. I’ll show you.”  
Hermione proceeded to put her fancy book-learning to work and demonstrate the fine art of licking frogs properly, ushering them into their first experience with mind-altering drugs. The rest of the trip was spent sweating, hallucinating, and bouncing against the walls.  
By the end of the train ride, they’d already crashed and burnt themselves out, descending from a wild drug trip to quietly nursing headaches while their eyes burned.  
But it was through this shared experience of feeling miserable that they formed a lifelong bond.

The trio disembarked, dragging their luggage and trying not to let on how blitzed they were.  
Before they got far, the trio were stopped by a snide blonde boy, surrounded by a gang of supporters.  
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Harry Potter.” He snickered.  
Harry was incredibly sweaty and trying to play off the fact that his left eye wasn’t working correctly. “Uh, yes. Hello. Everything is fine.”  
“Ha, look at this loser. Rich and famous.” His crowd of goons roared with forced laughter.  
Harry was not amused.  
This guy had only just gotten here. How did he already have an army of cronies? All he had were Hermione and Ron, who were trying not to vomit on each other.  
“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you later, Potter.” Draco spread his arms and his goons lifted him up and ushered him away. Just before they were out of sight, Draco commanded one of his thralls to chuck a rock at Harry as a parting gesture. It missed and smacked Ron in the face, which sent him into heaving fits.

Later, before Harry could even get a hold of his drug addled brain, he was ushered into Hogwarts Driving School for Witches and Wizards and into the great hall for the sorting ceremony.  
Everyone sat and waited while the hat droned on and on with a song that it had clearly plagiarized from Top 40 radio. After stumbling through a second verse that the hat obviously only half remembered, he went on a ten minute long scat breakdown.  
Finally it ended, not because the song reached a natural conclusion, but because the hat kind of stopped halfway through. And so the sorting ceremony could begin.

The crowd hushed when Harry finally got his turn. The filthy hat was plopped down on his head, teeming with sweat stink and lice from a thousand wizards who had come before.  
The hat mumbled for a while. “God, I don’t know. I’m really hung over right now.”  
“If it’s not too much trouble, I’d rather not be in Slytherin. Those people seem kind of scary.”  
“Tell you what, slip me five bucks and I'll put you wherever you want."  
After a quick transaction, the hat loudly announced that Harry was in “Groffendoor.” Close enough. Harry joined his house mates.  
After a few more children had been sorted, Dumbledore lost his patience.  
"This is taking too long.” Dumbledore grunted as he stood up, heaving himself from his seat. He gestured vaguely at the students that had yet to be sorted. “All of you smug shits are Gryffindor.” Then he pointed at another section of students. “You shits in the back are all Ravenclaw.” He coughed and spat before continuing. “You lot look pretty fucking shady. You’re in Slytherin now.” He plopped back down into his seat. “And the rest of you dorks are all in Hufflepuff.”  
Mumbles of varying amounts of approval ran through the crowd. Although it was mostly worried sighs from the new Hufflepuffs.  
“Now get out of my hall you noisy fucks. Daddy needs a nap.” He drew a revolver from his robe and fired into the air. All the children panicked and ran screaming.  
The teachers, used to this behavior, rolled their eyes and covered their ears as they excused themselves from the hall amid the fleeing crowd.

Once the terrified fleeing died down, the students grouped up with their new house mates and filed toward their respective quarters.  
On the way there, Harry tried to set up his belongings under one of the frightening staircases, until he was informed that he would actually have a bed of his own. To sleep in!  
This place truly was amazing.  
For the first time, Harry found himself in a group that accepted him for being rich and famous, just as he always dreamed. And with his new compatriots, the entire house engaged in a welcoming ceremony that had been the norm for many years: a massive group drug bender.  
Upperclassmen and new arrivals alike sampled from an intimidating pile of chemicals the students had amassed for the occasion.  
Many toads were licked and whimsical powders snorted as the party raged into the night.  
Already forgetting their unpleasant experience on the train, Harry, Hermione, and Ron went whole hog. And soon enough they could add a new entry in the list of new experiences they had encountered today: they had their first blackout.  
The first of many.

****************************

The concept of going to class didn’t agree with Harry. He hadn’t been paying attention to any of his schooling up to this point in life, he wasn’t about to start now.  
Even his everlasting wonder at the whimsy of the school wasn’t enough to keep him invested in Defensive Driving Against the Dark Arts. Or Divination and Motor Maintenance.   
The one major exception to that rule was their first driving class.

All the drooling first years were lined up in front of Madam Hooch and her rows of junky golf carts.  
“What are you all waiting for? Pick one out before I start cracking your skulls together for a laugh.”  
Each student climbed behind the wheel of the motorized wizard carts, one of many indignities they would suffer at the hands of this school. At Madam Hooch’s instruction, they drew their wand-like keys and shouted “Ignitio” until they could start the engine of the pathetic vehicles.  
Harry’s cart roared to life on the first try, drawing many stares of wonder and a fair number of angry muttered comments.   
Harry was elated at this sudden success. His first taste of proper glory. It was intoxicating, almost as intoxicating as those expired frogs Ron kept making him lick. While the other students were still shouting at their carts and before Madam Hooch could even give him his first instruction, Harry slammed his foot on the pedal and shot out into the fields, nearly taking her arm off as he passed.  
The clunking, rattling whine of the engine was enough to drown out the giddy worried giggling pouring out of Harry as he did donuts, tearing up the soft grass and mud.  
His first elated joyride came to a premature end when his new nemesis Draco plowed into him from the side, mangling Harry’s cart and sending it sailing into a muddy ditch.  
“Shouldn’t you be driving more carefully, Potter?” Draco turned and slammed the gas, showering Harry in dried mud and grass clumps.  
Harry was pinned amid the tangled mess of his cart and was forced to watch the rest of the class slowly learn the magical art of driving, or in the case of a few of the Hufflepuffs, accidentally running themselves over and putting themselves in critical condition.  
From his place in the dirt ditch, Harry swore vengeance, on Draco and this entire stupid school for dampening his first brief moment of glory, but for now what would really make him feel better would be a frog or two to take the edge off.

After that, most of Harry’s time at school was spent plotting with Ron to sneak off and slurp frogs during as many classes as possible. Always chasing that post-sorting ceremony high.  
Ron insisted Hermione be included in their escapades, partly because she knew so much about chemicals, but mostly because Ron was afraid that if she ever stopped, she’d have reason to narc on them.

As time and the years went on, licking toads could only hold their attention for so long. Soon enough they graduated to smoking gilly weed. And that led to downing pumpkin poppers. And not long after that they were hiding in bathroom stalls, dropping tabs of veritaserum. Soon, their blackout after the sorting ceremony was like a slow blink compared to the deep blackouts Harry began to experience.

**********************************************

First and second year went by in a blur.  
Occasionally Harry would dip out of his drug-induced stupor and not have any idea what he was doing or how he’d gotten there. Like the time he came to in the sewers with a tooth in one hand and a huffing bag of wizard glue in the other.  
He looked down and saw a book laid open before him. It looked like it had already been stabbed once, leaking black blood.  
Harry just shrugged and resumed stabbing it, after a quick sniff of glue. "Yeah! Fuck books!"

Or the time he came to in the woods, raising his fist to bash Ron in the skull, words already spilling out of his mouth.  
"You want a scar too?"  
"Hell yeah! Punch me with your keys. Do it!"  
Hermione was off by herself, not paying any attention to them. She was reading by her lumos keychain, tissue stuffed up her nose to stop the bleeding.

Although he couldn’t specifically remember it, he must have been going to classes at some point being that he eventually got his permit and earned the right to drive his father’s car.  
His first time behind the wheel, sitting solemnly, surrounded by the smell of old leather, he struggled to find words for this event. After all this was a very momentous…  
…something.  
Actually, he was having trouble feeling anything but the buzz of some distant substance that went up his nose, sitting here in the only remaining trace of his true parents. He hadn’t known them at all. All he had was a vehicle that his father must have poured hours upon hours into customizing.  
A real shame the dead twit didn’t leave any instructions because there were so many levers and knobs that didn’t seem to do anything.  
The most conspicuous was the lever near the gearshift with a stylized phoenix imprinted on it. No matter how much he pulled and pushed and kicked at it, it wouldn’t budge. It had to do something. It was the most important-looking thing here.  
Harry opened the glove box, looking for hints, but instead found a long expired stash of old drugs wrapped in foil.  
“Oh hell yeah. Here’s to you, you dead whatever your name was.” Without a second of thought, Harry took a long snort, assuming it was something he could sort, and instantly hit another hard blackout.

He jerked awake in a different, much less impressive vehicle. A Firebolt GT.  
“Oh god, where is my car? Did I sell it for drugs? Were the drugs good, at least?”  
Hermione was standing out the driver side window. “No, this is quidditch. What is your problem lately?”  
“Quidditch? Have I played this before?”  
“A lot, actually. You’re the star driver. Are you okay?”  
“No, I’m definitely not. Hermy-on, I think I’m freaking out.”  
She leaned back, squinting at him. “…What did you call me?”  
He tried to speak, stopped, faltered, and then silently rolled the window up.  
Hermione left in a huff.

Harry sat at the edge of the pitch, waiting for his signal while desperately trying to figure out from context clues what he was supposed to do. Two color coded teams of cars, revving their engines. There were markings on the field and a series of hoops, but those could have meant anything.  
A starter pistol and a roar from the crowd began the match and a dozen engines roared to life. Harry screamed and slammed on the gas, hoping for the best.

Moments later he t-boned an opposing player, sending them both smashing into the wall surrounding the field.  
“Oh shit. Oh shit. I already fucked up.” Through his cracked windshield he could see the Hufflepuff in the other car, nursing his whiplashed neck. Harry readied his keys. “I can’t have this on my record. Avada Kada-”  
He stopped before erasing this person from existence because the deafening ringing in his ears finally cleared and he was met with the roar of approving cheers from the crowd. Had he done a good thing?  
He threw the Firebolt into reverse, which miraculously still worked, and separated from the Hufflepuff’s vehicle with an unpleasant metallic rip.   
Leaving his bumper behind, he sped off to go smash up as many Hufflepuffs as he possibly could before his car finally stopped running or caught fire or until the crowd stopped cheering.  
He loved quidditch now.

******************************************************

Glory and adoration was great, but it was no substitute for skipping class to snort Merlin’s Beard (the street name for wizard cocaine).  
One day they were out behind the school next to the wizard dumpsters, taking turns snorting down a fresh package of white powder they’d bought off of some weirdo in Hogsmeade.  
Harry took a deep snort and his brain lit up and caught fire. “Aw shit. I’m going to have to lay down after this.”  
Hermione took a quick bump and handed the package to Ron. “Aren’t you going to class later? You have to go to at least some of your classes.”  
“Ha ha. Fuck no. School sucks.”  
Hermione sighed. “Narcotics are no excuse to neglect your studies.”  
“Hang on.” Harry wiped the blood from his nose. "How are you still passing? You're here just as much as the rest of us.”  
“Well…there is something that helps with that…” She tugged at the golden chain around her neck.  
Ron spat out the chocolate frog he was sucking on. “It’s a wire! She’s a narc! Kill her!”  
“It’s not a wire, you lunatic.” She took a cautious look around to make sure they were alone. “It’s a …time turner.”  
Through questionable means, Hermione had acquired a device that allowed her to bend time to her capricious will. Of course, being a nerd the only thing she did with it was use it to be able to attend all her classes, but also skip with Ron and Harry to do whatever drug of the week they were cramming into their brains.

Ron wasn’t convinced. “Bullshit. Probably some …narc clock. For telling narc time.”  
“Ugh. You are insufferable. Fine, I’ll show you how it works.”  
“Hang on,” Harry said, prepping another line of the powder. “I need my medicine first.”

As Hermione used the time turner, they all felt the world around them unravel and stitch itself back together. But when the turning stopped nothing seemed different.  
“Okay, that didn’t prove anything.”  
Hermione tucked her necklace away. “You’ll see in a minute. Now let’s hide behind those bushes before we get in real trouble.”

Moments later, their past selves walked by. And judging by the package they were carrying, this wasn’t long before they’d started their morning “activities”. A fresh package of delicious Merlin’s Beard. And that meant…  
“See?” Hermione gestured at their past selves. “With this we can make our classes and then engage in libations without-”  
Harry cut her off. “Everyone who isn’t me shut up. I have an idea.”  
They waited for him to continue, but instead of enlightening them, he broke into a headlong run and drop-kicked his past self in the back of the head.  
Everyone screamed and Harry took the opportunity to swipe the package of wizard cocaine and flee.  
The future Ron and Hermione broke cover and followed him all the way to the upstairs bathrooms.

“Harry, that was insane.”  
Harry’s hands were shaking as he ripped open the package. “See? Now we can get high twice.”  
“You’re going to cause a time paradox!”  
Ron laughed and moved in to get a snort. “Whatever, time narc.”  
Hermione screamed. “I’m not a fucking narc!” She grabbed the bag and snorted a fistful. 

They were all gathered on the bathroom floor cutting lines when something occurred to Harry. “If we could get high twice on one supply, I wonder if we could go for three…”  
Before Hermione could slap him for proposing further time fuckery, the door of the bathroom was kicked in by another future version of the golden trio. So high they were electric, eyes bloodshot, noses bleeding and seething with cocaine-fueled rage.   
“GIVE US THE DRUGS YOU FUCKSQUATS! IT’S TIME FOR NUMBER THREE. WE’RE FROM THE FUTURE! AAAAAAGGGHHH!”  
They charged and attacked.

Soon, Harry suffered another blackout. Part from the drugs, part from the vicious beating by his future self, also possibly from the strain of the screwed up timeline forcibly correcting itself.

Double and triple drugs was a revelation, but not really worth the time paradoxes and getting punched in the skull by your drug-enraged future self.  
But Harry was rich. He could just buy double the drugs.  
And so he did.  
And double the drugs meant the blackouts became three times as bad, which meant huge swaths of his whimsical adventures dropped out of his brain.

Harry jerked awake and time had passed. A lot of it. He, Ron, and Hermione were out in the woods, gathered around a half-dug grave.  
Nearby was the poorly tarp-wrapped body of Sally Ann Perkins.  
“What the fuck?”  
Oddly Hermione seemed to be the least rattled by this. “We tell no one about this. Understand?”  
Ron was blubbering, sobbing, panicked. Ron’s shirt was stained with tears, snot, and grave dirt all across the screen printed picture of Ron’s own smiling face.  
Hermione smacked him, her hand coming away wet. “Fucking cool it, Ron!”  
Harry looked down and noticed the crude digging tool he was holding. “Why are we using a shovel?”  
“Because you lost our keys.”  
“All of them? How?”  
“Will you just dig already?”  
Harry wondered if this key business and this dead body were somehow related. No idea. When he tried to think back, his brain was too scorched.  
They were going to have to get really high to forget about this.

******************************************

After that, Harry embraced the huge empty spots in his memory. It was less to think about. And everything seemed to be working out for The Boy Who Drived.  
On the other end of a blackout, Harry’s hands were on the wheel of his father’s car, dark scenery flying by at highway fatality speeds.   
Ron was in the passenger’s seat, coming down from his own drug trip. Glassy eyes. Pacifying himself by chewing on a strange brown mass. Eventually, as his eyes cleared, Harry could see that it was the sorting hat, tooth-marked and dripping with saliva. It wouldn’t be sorting anyone this year.  
Then a voice from the back seat. “Where are you even going?”  
Harry screamed and turned in his seat. “Agh! What the fuck?”   
Hermione was sitting behind Ron, giving Harry a weird look.  
Ron reached over and steadied the wheel to keep them from going off the road.  
“Where did you come from? Scared the shit out of me.” Harry took back control of the wheel once his panic subsided.  
Hermione shrugged. “I’ve been back here since we left. Did you forget?”  
“I don’t know. I don’t ever look back there.” Harry checked the digital display over the radio for the time. “Aren’t we supposed to be in class?”  
Hermione kicked the back of his seat. “Yes. But you made us skip, you degenerate.”  
“I did?”  
“You’re a looney,” said Ron, continuing to gnash on the spit-soaked hat.  
“Hey, maybe I’m a looney because of all these drugs we keep taking.” Harry rubbed his eyes until he saw lights. “I need a break. My nose won’t stop bleeding and I can’t get the taste of frog out of my mouth.”  
He considered the value of slowing down his lifestyle, while at the same time unconsciously pressed harder on the gas pedal.  
Hermione tried to warn Harry, but not before the front of the car smashed into one of the forest’s horrifying denizens.  
The three of them screamed as gigantic spider guts exploded and splattered across the front windshield.  
Harry slammed the brakes and they skidded to a halt, a giant, fuzzy leg sliding down the driver side window, leaving behind a slick of green goo.  
Harry jammed the car into park. “What the fucking shit?”  
Hermione was turned around in her seat. “It’s still twitching.”  
Harry checked the rear view mirror and saw the massive spider remains. It had fangs so large they could pierce his skull with room to spare. This thing had just been hanging out within spitting distance of Hogwarts. “What is wrong with this school? I can’t take this.”  
Ron wiped his mouth. “You wanna get high?”  
“YES.”  
Hermione piped up from the back. “I know a centaur around here.”  
“Is he cool?” Ron asked.  
“Well, he’s not a narc.”  
“Let’s go.”

So much for his plan to get clean. They spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with a creepy centaur, doing centaur whippets. It was basically a normal whippet, but while you were on horse tranquilizers.   
The whippets did not agree with Ron. He was pressing down on his skull from both sides, gritting his teeth. “This is awful. This is the worst I’ve felt since Voldemort came back.”  
“Yeah, I know what-” Harry coughed violently. “Hang on. He did what? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”  
“What are you on about? You were there.”  
“I…what? Oh fuck. Is he mad at me?”  
Hermione and Ron exchanged a glance.   
“Oh no. That looks like a yes. I’m a dead man!” Harry flipped the nearest table and dove headfirst into his next marathon of centaur whippets.

******************************************************************************

A hundred years later he woke up on the hood of his father’s car with Cho Chang. His brain was ringing and buzzing and his eyes felt too big for his skull.  
“What the fuck have I been doing?”  
Cho didn’t answer and took another drag off her wizard cigarette.  
Harry looked around. The two of them were alone out in some darkened corner of the woods. “Are we dating?”  
“Barely.”  
“Okay. Cool. Hey, I’m kind of fucked up. Do you have a toad I could lick.That would take the edge off.”  
“Toad licking? What are you, a first year? We snort howler ashes.” Cho flicked her cigarette out into the dry brush and pulled out a red packet, heavy with powder.  
“Okay, that sounds cool.” It most certainly wasn’t cool and he felt like his skeleton was about to catch fire and he was desperately in need of a reality check to figure out what was actually happening in the world but goddamn if he was ever going to turn down an offer of drugs.  
She prepped the powder on an old rearview mirror, a ghastly glow emanating from the ashes. This would be fine.  
Cho took the first snort, grimacing and punching herself in the thigh. “Holy shit.”  
Harry hesitantly took a tiny bump of the powder. As soon as he snorted it, his brain lit up on fire. “Oh my god.” Harry began shivering. “Ow ow ow. What is happening?”  
“Take another hit. It’ll even you out. Then take another and it’ll make you want to eat god.”  
Harry was sweating profusely. “I think I need to rest for a second.”  
“Don’t be such a pussy.” Cho took back the ashes and snorted up a lungful. Then she let out a victory scream. “I’m invincible!” She jumped up to her feet. “Let’s go fuck up that snake wizard!”  
“The what? No!”  
Cho forced what was left of the powder into Harry’s hand. “Snort the rest or I’ll rip out your spine!”  
“Uh, okay.”

When Harry next woke he was collapsed next to his car in a puddle of vomit, hopefully his. The way his stomach felt, he might be adding to it soon.  
From nearby was the sound of a struggle. Dull thunk of metal on meat.  
When his eyes cleared, Harry saw Cho beating Voldemort’s skull in with a tire iron on the hood of his own Dragula.  
“Fight me, bitch!” Cho was in a berserker rage, blood pouring out of her nose. She seemed to be having fun.  
As blows rained down on his head, Voldemort was struggling weakly, trying to poke out Cho’s eyes with his keys.  
Eventually he went limp. Cho was out of breath, tire iron sticky with snake goo. She shoved his body into the dirt and stole his keys. “I’m the dark lord now, you shit fuck.” She climbed into his car and the engine roared to life. “Nobody ever say my name again!”  
Tires spinning, kicking up a cloud of dust as she pulled away.  
And there she went. At least Harry still had a ride home.  
It was a struggle to keep from retching as he climbed into the driver seat.  
Voldemort was still lying face down in the dust. Harry had no idea why or how the dark lord had returned, but he knew there was only one thing to be done in this situation: steal credit.  
It took effort to keep his guts inside as he shifted into drive, rolling along at school zone speed. Eventually he felt the bump as his car rolled over Voldemort’s inert body.  
“Ha ha, Harry Potter wins again,” he said, vomiting into his lap.

As he recovered, he once again spotted the lever near the gear shift, the one his father had installed.  
Phoenix Injection System.  
Still wouldn’t budge. Not that it mattered now, as he’d already slain the dark lord again.  
“This calls for a celebration.” He opened his glove box and consumed everything left of his stash. Then once again he embraced sweet, sweet oblivion. 

The remainder of his time at Hogwarts went by in flashes and smears. Living the high life as the double slayer of Voldemort and retreating into drug use to help ignore the fact that everyone’s adulation of him might have been waning and giving way to suspicion that he was really just another rich doofus with a slightly sadder than usual backstory.  
After several months of vanishing off the face of the earth, Cho Chang returned, angrier than when she left. She refused to talk to anyone or explain where she’d been.  
Harry was terrified, partly because she was one bad drug trip away from turning into a violent psychopath, but also because she could very easily expose him as a whimsical fraud.  
And every time he emerged from a blackout, he had to assess whether or not he still had the undeserved respect that he so desperately needed.

*****************************************

And then this morning, Harry was yanked out of bed by his fellow housemates. Morning in this case meant just shy of noon, as Harry was nursing a rather hefty but unsurprising hangover.  
When he tried punching them away, they explained that today was the day of the house cup invitational street race. And he was expected to drive for Griffindor.   
He was disoriented and sick but he never backed down from a challenge. Victory over his dumb, stupid enemies was the only thing he lived for anymore. And that was why he let those idiots pull him out of bed and shuffle him off, unshowered and headache-ridden, to his car.

The house cup race was a highlight of the end of the school year. A chance for the houses to settle their disputes right before huge swaths of the children would be informed that they were being held back.   
Harry sat slumped in the driver seat, slapping himself awake. “Come on, Harry. Get your shit together.”   
People used to care when The Boy Who Drived went out driving. When he’d first participated in the House Cup, everyone in the school had shit their pants with excitement. Now they hardly gave a hot fuck. What does he have to do to get some respect around here? Kill a snake wizard every week?

The starting position was determined by house points, and Gryffindor was dead last. Ahead of him Hufflepuff, then Slytherin, and Ravenclaw in front. No worries though. The only problem would be tearing through whatever heap of garbage the Hufflepuffs were driving this time.  
God damn he hated Hufflepuffs.

Harry caught a look at himself in the rearview mirror. He looked so much older than he should. How many times had he been held back?  
Was he actually older than he thought? Or was this a side effect of the massive amount of drugs he’d pumped into his system over the years.  
Man, thinking about this was making him stressed. Time to take the edge off.  
He reached into the glovebox for a pick me up. But instead of a rancid frog or a questionable powder, all he found was a translucent cube, solid. Probably a drug.  
“Do I …eat this?” It was definitely too solid to snort.  
He was still attempting to gnaw on it when the other competitors pulled into view.

Draco, damn his beautiful ass  
Draco was driving the pride of Slytherin. A Basilisk S-Type that had been customized so it wouldn’t have to run on filthy gasoline like a common Muggle vehicle. Instead, it ran solely on unicorn blood. Extremely expensive, and forbidden, but Draco demanded the best.   
While Draco sat on the hood smoking, Krabbe and Goyle were busy butchering a unicorn corpse and dumping cupfuls of silver blood into a funnel lodged in the car’s open gas tank.

Goyle tossed aside the unicorns head. He was sweating and looked horrendously ill. “I don’t feel so good, sir.” Goyle fought back a wave of nausea.  
“Shut up and juice that horse. I’ve got a race to win.”  
Draco saw Harry watching him and made a sour face. He mouthed some vague threat and threw his cigarette away as he climbed behind the wheel.  
Harry’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. “That’s right. You better run, you sexy bitch.”

Off in the distance, Cho, driver for Ravenclaw, was sitting on the trunk of her sleek, black Chimera GT. She was staring daggers at Harry. He gave her a wave and she flipped him off.  
She hadn’t spoken to him since she had returned from her stint as the dark lord. Or at least he didn’t think they’d spoken.  
Harry leaned out the driver-side window. “Hey, are we still dating?”  
Cho flipped him off again and climbed into her car.  
“Is that a no?”

Just prior to the start of the race, a stream of Gryffindors moved past his car, slapping their grubby hands all over his windshield.  
They sure were supportive when it came to the House Cup riding on his shoulders.

It was a matter of course that Harry would represent Gryffindor. He always had, always would until the day he either graduated or got expelled. He owned this house, no matter what certain classmates whispered about him behind his back.  
This was his house forever because they liked to win. If Harry wasn’t around to be their golden boy, who did they have? Neville?  
“Don’t make me fucking laugh,” Harry muttered, gnawing on his cube.

On his way to his starting position, Draco pulled up alongside Harry, his car rumbling and stinking with unicorn exhaust.  
“See you at the finish line, Potter.”  
Harry spit out his cube into the ashtray. “Oh yeah, well I’ll see you at the… hospital. Where your mother is.”  
They were cut off from further witty barbs by Cho Chang pounding on her horn. “Are you going to keep sucking each other's dicks or are we gonna race?”  
Draco gave him a lingering, threatening look and pulled away.

Where the hell were Ron and Hermione?

He really needed something to get his head right and scare away this hangover.  
Even this air was strangling him. He cranked up all his windows to keep himself sealed away and to muffle the sounds from outside.  
His head was down on the steering wheel when he heard the starter pistol. Harry screamed and stomped on the gas pedal.  
His car rocketed forward, slamming into the Hufflepuff junker, mangling it and knocking it off the road, only leaving a crater in Harry’s front bumper.  
Whatever Hufflepuff was in there was likely horribly injured, but who cares? What mattered was that turning the Hufflepuff vehicle into a wreck slowed him down enough for Draco and Cho to get an early lead and disappear down the forest road.  
Harry pressed the pedal to the floor and drove after them, to the mixed cheers and horrified gasps of the crowd.

The forest rushed past him, full of untold horrors, beasts, murderers. This school was a death trap. It was no wonder so many of the students here were drug-slurping degenerates. How else would they deal with the stress?

*******************************************************

After drifting through a tight turn, Harry was blindsided by a sleek silver vehicle shooting out of the forest and sideswiping him.  
“What took you so long, Potter?”  
“I’m not in the mood for this, you sexy fuck!”  
“Are you in the mood for this?” Draco waved his keychain and yelled an incantation. "Tirius Slashius!" As he did a spectral red light manifested and shot toward Harry’s front left tire, which exploded into rubber shreds. Along with another sideswipe from Draco, this sent his car veering off the road, crashing through shrubbery. Before he could regain control, he hit a bump and was launched into the air.  
Suddenly, the black lake was spread out before him, ready to swallow him up. Harry stomped on the brake and screamed obscenities to no avail.  
As he hit the water, his forehead smashed on the steering wheel, dazing him. Before he could get his bearings, the dark, stinking water had swallowed him up, trapping him in a watery grave.

“Aw fuck. Oh fuck. Oh shit.” He tried to body check the door open but the water pressing in prevented it from budging, only a small trickle of dark water crept in around the edges of the window.  
He twisted in his seat to give the windshield a few desperate, impotent kicks. And then the throbbing headache drained away any energy he had left for panicking.  
There had to be a way out of this, but he wouldn’t be able to think until he dealt with this hangover.   
That cube had been nothing, probably just an air freshener, but he had to have something substantial in here.  
Harry opened the glovebox, but found nothing but a handful of old documents and empty baggies. He slammed it shut in frustration.  
“Fucking brilliant! Not only have drugs ruined my life, but now I don’t even have any.”

As another gush of lake water poured in, fang toothed slug creatures latched onto the windows, one by one, hungry for Harry’s sweet wizard meat. And beyond them, deeper in the murky water, the vague shadow of a leviathan slinking through the darkness, considering when to strike.

There had to have been some spell that could fix this, some kind of charm that would remove all conflict with no consequence. But damned if he could remember anything from classes. Most of what he’d learned was what sort of objects were good to shove into Ron’s mouth when he started freaking out to keep him from biting off his own tongue.  
Harry pressed down on the pedal and the engine gave a wet rumble. “I should have gone to class.”  
“Oh, did I sleep through class again?”

Harry shrieked in terror and spun around to find Luna Lovegood sitting in the backseat. “Who the fuck?” He had to scrape his brain for a dim recollection. “Why are you here?”  
“I was taking a nap. Dreadfully long night. Had to collect all these teeth.” She lifted up a hefty mason jar half full of what may have been human teeth.  
“What the fuck are you doing in my car? You’re not even in my house.”  
Luna yawned. “Is today the House Cup?” She looked around at the darkening water and the creatures chewing on the glass. “You don’t seem to be doing very well.”

“Why are you so calm? You’re freaking me out!” Another gush of water sloshed in, soaking him. "God damnit. You're breathing up all the air! If we're going to die, you die first!" Harry attempted to dive into the backseat to strangle her, but he was caught up in the seatbelt. “Start strangling yourself until I get back there.”  
Luna sighed, then put on a pair of flamboyant feathered sunglasses and used them to stare out at the lake. “Well, at least that shrake seems to be enjoying himself. What a lovely fellow.”  
Harry gave up ineffectually pawing at his seatbelt, resigned to his fate. “What’s the point? What’s the point of anything? Do you at least have some drugs on you? If I’m going to die I want to be blitzed.”  
“Nope. Sorry. I’m straight edge.”  
“Bullshit. How about those teeth? Can I smoke those teeth?”  
“I would rather you didn’t.”

Harry punched the steering wheel in frustration and would have cried but his eyes were dried, bloodshot husks.  
“What’s the point of being a wizard? Magic sucks. This car sucks.” He pulled up his leg and kicked the lever of the Phoenix Injection System. “What do you even do? Stupid bullshit doesn’t even work.”  
“Why don’t you push the button?”  
“What button? It’s a lever.”  
Luna adjusted her ridiculous glasses. “The knob at the top of the lever. It has a cap that opens.”  
Harry thumbed the top and it flipped open. “The fuck?” Somehow he’d never noticed the obvious crease.  
Under the lid was a red button. When Harry pressed it, there was a click and the lever unlocked.   
For a second, Harry thought that he should refrain from finding out what his father’s secret project was, or at least treat this moment with some measure of ceremony. Then a skunk shark rammed the side of the car, cracking the windshield, and Harry slammed the lever all the way forward.  
As soon as he did, every light on the instrument panel lit up at once, then came a deep rumbling from the engine.

The rumbling continued, even as the car finally touched down in the bottom of the lake, water seeping in constantly. Then a recurring flash of light from beneath as the temperature rose. While Harry started sweating profusely, the creatures all fled from the car while the lake began bubbling and boiling.  
“What in the hell is going on?”  
Luna clicked her safety belt on. “I would get ready to drive if I were you.”

The flashes of light became huge licks of flame too intense to be extinguished.  
And then when Harry stepped on the gas, the flames became brighter.  
The lake around his car was becoming a column of steam. As the steam dissipated and was replaced by roaring fire, Harry saw a slew of horrible lake creatures flopping around on the floor of the former lake. Lake monsters, merpeople, assorted aquatic horrors. All of them boiled and cooked alive.  
It gave Harry a raging victory hard-on.  
"Fuck yeah! Take that, the environment.”  
He hit the gas and the flames grew in intensity. The tires spun in the newly scorched mud and the car took off towards the edge of the lake.

Harry had never bothered to read through his dad’s notes to discover the nature of this extremely illegal car modification. It was his father's last great magical work, though he never had the opportunity to test it out. Had he been given the chance, he would have met an untimely, fiery demise instead of just being murdered by a gross wizard.

The car hit the edge of the lake and began to climb.  
Like a phoenix rising out of a dank mud hole, Harry erupted from the edge of the lake with a river of fire rising behind him.  
Teeth shaking as he held on for dear life.  
Still belching fire as it landed, Harry stepped on the gas and the car rocketed down the road twice as fast as it had ever gone before.   
More fire spreading out behind them, licking the trees, scorching them.

The engine couldn’t handle the force it was giving out and the entire vehicle was in danger of rattling itself into twisted metal shards. The non-slashed tires were melting, and the trail of fire wasn’t as far back as he would have liked. It was emanating from below the car and seemed ready to consume him whole.   
Harry gave the lever a tug but it wasn’t budging. Then it broke off in his hand.  
For some reason, Luna seemed unconcerned with the nightmarish firey deathtrap they’d found themselves in. “I’ve been napping for quite awhile. Do you suppose it’s dinner time yet? I’m rather hungry.” She wiped a handful of sweat from her brow.  
Harry just screamed at her in response as they plowed through another set of trees, igniting the forest as they went. 

Although he wasn’t aware of it, Harry continued screaming as the car slammed through spider nests and centaur bordellos until he could finally see a startled crowd in the distance.

“Good luck with your race. I should probably go.” Luna opened the side door, which was instantly ripped off and swallowed by the fire storm. She gave Harry an encouraging thumbs up and dove out, still clutching her jar of teeth.  
Fleeing, that would have been a good idea, ditch his stupid dad’s hobby project once and for all, but he wasn’t a quitter. He was going to win this race, no matter what. He was the Boy Who Drived and god damnit people loved him because he won stuff.  
So even as fire ate his car, Harry continued aiming himself at the finish line, shrieking the entire way.

The crowd scattered to make way for the flaming wreck skidding to a halt.   
Harry shouldered open the driver side door which fell off, the hinges already melting. He launched himself out, rolling in the dirt moments before the rest of the car was consumed in sputtering flames.

There was an awkward hush over the crowd as he stumbled to his feet and raised his arms in victory. “Yeah, who’s laughing now? I fucking won, like I always do.” He bent over and discreetly vomited before raising his arms again and laughing like a maniac.

The crowd was wide-eyed, slowly backing away from him. Partially because of the crazed look in his eyes, and partly because of the huge wall of fire that was consuming the forest and moving their way.  
Whimsical magical beasts fled the blaze on either side as Harry stepped on top of the wreckage of the Hufflepuff car to give his victory speech.  
“I’m motherfucking Harry Potter. No one is more desirable than me. From now on, no more of this golden child bullshit. I’m your goddamn king now.”  
While the crowd evaporated, Harry bent over and vomited again but nothing came out. “Where is everyone going? I’m the winner. Praise me, you shits.” He was oblivious to the unchecked inferno behind him.  
Harry stumbled off the wrecked car and grabbed a passing Hufflepuff by his scarf. “Did I beat Draco? Where is he? Show me where he is so I can kick him directly in the dick.”  
“He’s not here, sir. This is the starting line.”  
Harry would have punched him to death for daring to try and trick him, but then he noticed the horrible silvery gore of the unicorn’s remains.  
Harry was about to start bellowing in impotent rage but passed out from the smoke inhalation.

*******************************************

Harry woke up coughing and kicking. He was in the medical ward tangled in sheets and sweating through every layer. It was so quiet in here his ears were ringing.  
Outside, the sky was covered in a curtain of black smoke. He was going to have some explaining to do. But as far as he was concerned, he’d done the school a favor by incinerating that murder forest.

When he looked over and realized he wasn’t the only patient here, his heart stopped for two full seconds. “Jesus christ.”  
“Good morning.” Luna Lovegood was still alive, arm in a sling, two beds down from Harry.  
“It’s morning already?”  
“No, that just seems like a proper thing to say to someone who’s just woken up.”  
“What happened to you?”  
“I dislocated my shoulder when I dove out of your car. The nurse said it was a miracle I wasn’t burned up, but I knew those teeth would come in handy for something.”  
“Huh?” Harry couldn’t begin to parse what any of that statement meant and didn’t bother to pursue it.  
“Is it just us in here?”  
“For now. You had visitors earlier.” Luna gestured at her face, indicating he had something on his.  
“What is it?” He checked for a mirror or something reflective but couldn’t find anything except his keys on the table next to his bed. He grabbed them and waved them in the air. “Reflecto Patronum.” A spark and a swirl of bright light manifested into a floating rear view mirror. Harry grabbed it and used it to examine his face.  
He had been absolutely covered in black marker, unflattering insults and crude drawings of dicks. To be honest, he wasn’t sure if this was the work of his friends or his enemies. Although some of these dicks definitely had Ron’s artistic flair.  
That prick.  
No matter. He just wanted some rest for a change.

Harry had begun drifting off when he was awoken rudely by the sound of loud, repetitive honking from outside.  
“What is that?”  
Luna was up, peeking outside. “I think it’s for you.”

Harry dragged himself to the window to take a look at the source of the incessant honking.  
Draco, that sexy fuck. Who else would it be?  
Draco was idling beneath his window and there was a deep set of tire tracks through the grass marking his path. Harry could smell the unicorn fumes from up here.  
“What the hell do you want?”  
“Have a nice swim, Potter?”  
“Are you just going to throw one-liners at me? I’m busy.”  
“Looks like you were getting a little hot under the-”  
He was cut off by a sleek black vehicle plowing through the brush and t-boning Draco’s car. Draco flopped around like a doll and came to rest with his head on the steering wheel.

Cho leaned out the driver side window and slapped her door for emphasis. “Stop jerking eachother off and race like you mean it. I’m tired of your shit.”  
“Hi Cho.”  
“Don’t you fucking call me that.”  
“Seriously though, are we still dating?”  
“Eat your own ass, Potter!” The Cho Who Shall Not Be Chang-ed pulled away, the sound of tearing metal as she disconnected her car from Malfoy’s. She peeled out, her front bumper mangled and barely hanging on.  
Draco appeared to have been knocked out in the wreck. Good. Serves him right, him and his stupid, sexy ass.  
Harry left the window and limped back to his bed. Luna was at his bedside, pouring a glass of bright orange liquid with her good arm.  
“Here, I thought this might help.”  
“What is it?”  
“Humdinger squeezings. It helps with brain scorching. And you’ve got quite a lot.”  
He took the glass and sat down. “It smells awful.”  
“Yes it does.” Luna went back to her bed to read, balancing her book against her knees. “But I can guarantee it’s better for you than those Murtlap barnacles you so enjoy.”  
Oh no. Had he been getting into barnacles? That was the hard stuff. Shit. No wonder so much of his memory was missing.  
Harry took a long drink of the juice, coating his throat in a vile goo. While it rolled and bubbled in his stomach, Harry took a long sober moment to consider his vanished life and the darkness of infinite ennui rushing up to meet him.  
Outside, the sky was turning to a sea of orange and black smoke. Ash and dead abominations.  
“Luna, can I ask you something?”  
“Mmm hmm?”  
“Will you still like me when we both graduate?”  
Luna was quiet for a moment. “I feel you are making a large number of assumptions with the premise of that question.”  
“Yeah, I guess.”  
Harry turned over and curled into his pillow as the sky darkened outside.  
Then, quietly, before he drifted off to sleep.  
“Skool sux.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: JK Rowling can eat shit
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
